1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the methods for remotely managing financial expenditures by employees, and more particularly to the methods for coordinating product and service demonstrations.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of companies such as product manufacturers, product distributors, marketers, service providers, and the like use event coordinators to coordinate product demonstrations in public areas such as retail stores or public parks. In a typical scenario, the event coordinator directs event operators to buy the demonstration products from retail stores and distribute or demonstrate the products within the retail stores on a given date for a given time duration. The manufacturer or the event coordinator may specify the location and time of the demonstration event. For example, a cooking utensil manufacturer asks an event coordinator to coordinate an event demonstrating its cooking utensils. The event coordinator then directs event operators to go to a retail store, purchase the cooking utensils, purchase food, and present a food preparation demonstration in the retail store with the purchased cooking utensils and food. Typically the event operator sets up a booth with promotional items and advertisements, so that the event operator can introduce and promote the products. Often the event operator distributes products to customers of the retail store at a reduced price or free of charge.
For certain promotional events, the event coordinator provides the event operator with requirements or instructions for the event operator to prepare and distribute the product in a specific public place, such as a public park or retail store, at a specific time as called for by the promotional event. The event coordinator may also provide the event operator with, for example, sample product to prepare and distribute, disposable utensils to distribute with the samples, sanitary gloves to use when handling the product, coupons to distribute with the samples, and promotional items and advertisements to display when preparing and distributing the product.
The event operator is usually an employee of an agency contracted by the event coordinator. In other embodiments, the event operator is an employee of the event coordinator, a product manufacturer, a service provider, or a retail store. The term “employee” as used in the present application is a broad term having its ordinary meaning and includes independent contractors. In typical situations, the event coordinator will utilize an agency's event operators, because the event coordinator does not have its own employees physically located in the geographical locale in which the products are to be demonstrated. For certain promotional events, the event operators are provided funds, typically in the form of cash or checks, for buying the demonstration products.
The event operators need to be provided funds to purchase necessary items in order to conduct the demonstration event. Credit cards can be used to make purchases without the use of cash. However, many conventional credit cards do not deduct the purchase amount from a sum of money held by the consumers. Rather, credit cards in effect provide a loan to the consumer to be paid back at a later time. If credit cards are provided to the event operators to make required purchases, the event coordinator cannot control the amount and nature of purchases. Debit cards allow a consumer to make a purchase for products without the use of cash by directly deducting the purchase amount from the consumer's bank account. Debit cards also provide a similar advantage to credit cards in that a record of purchases can be tracked according to usage of the card. With cash purchases, only the consumer can keep track of the purchases by collecting receipts.
A company desiring to promote its products or services may hire the event coordinator to manage promotional events that demonstrate certain products or services in, for example, hundreds or thousands of retail stores located throughout the United States or elsewhere. For such large promotions in stores around the country, the event coordinator may use many agencies. The event coordinator must rely on the trustworthiness of the agencies to direct employees to the demonstration locations. The event coordinator and/or the agencies must also rely on the trustworthiness of the event operators to use the provided funds to purchase the demonstration products, instead of using the funds for their personal purposes. The event coordinator and/or the agencies must further rely on the trustworthiness of the event operators to work in the specified demonstration locations on the specified dates for the specified time periods.
Occasionally, event operators arrive at the specified demonstration locations on the specified dates but are not permitted to conduct the demonstration events. For example, a retail store manager may not allow an event operator to setup a particular promotional event because the manager was not previously notified of the event or of the products or services which were to be included in the demonstration. Thus, it may be difficult to determine whether or not the event actually occurred, whether or not the retail store manager was notified of the event, and how much the event operator, agency and event coordinator should be paid for the event.